The quiet of Qunu returns after Nelson Mandela is laid to rest

 
Desolate: The last few press vehicles in Qunu
Kim Sengupta16 December 2013

The thousands who had descended, the politicians and dignitaries, the security and the media, had gone, Qunu in the early morning mist rolling down from the hills had gone back to what it was, little more than a village of scattered huts, a few brick buildings.

Groups of residents were making their way to the place from where they were banned yesterday, the grave of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.

"We are his people and we did not even get to see him. They brought all these big people here, but there was no room for us. What would Madiba have made of that?”Asked Moses Gqwarhu. “And now it’s all over, will the government forget us again?”

Despite having South Africa’s most famous son as one of their own, Qunu, has remained a poor place. There is a small, one room, medical clinic, lacking most key facilities; education at secondary level requires travel to the nearest town, Umtata; electricity and water supplies are haphazard. “Maybe with Madiba being here, we will get some tourists, but it is a long way for people to come” Andile Kobie, a retired schoolteacher ruminated. “But we just know, we are full of uncertainties.”

The uncertainty is not confined to this corner of the Transkei. Yesterday the President, Jacob Zuma, had begun his address to those gathered for funeral by singing Thina Sizwe (We the Nation) a hymn of revolution. Many among the 4,500 people there had joined in, an immensely moving remembrance of the struggle for freedom and equality. Listening to them, watching them, one felt they knew who they were.

But the question many are asking is where do they go from here. Mr Zuma was heckled relentlessly by the crowd in the memorial service for Mr Mandela last week. There was condemnation of what took place in front 91 heads of state and millions viewing around the world, South Africa, the view held, had embarrassed herself.

But there is no disguising the fact that the President, buffeted by allegations of corruption and inefficiency, is deeply unpopular. At the same time the African National Congress has a firm grip on power and the opposition is unlikely to be in a position to mount an effective challenge nationally.

Today is a public holiday here, the Day of Reconciliation, which was started in 1994 after the end of apartheid. It is, of course, the legacy of Nelson Mandela that South Africa did not collapse into civil war and had stayed together without racial strife and forgiving what happened in the past has been a constant theme in the events commemorating his life and death.

At the funeral ceremony Mr Mandela’s granddaughter, Nandi Mandela, had said: “Go well Madiba, go well to the land of our ancestors, you have run your race.”  But what effect will his passing have?  Even away from public life in recent times he remained a moral and symbolic presence which is now gone.

Listening to the speeches, Harry Radebe, a student, whose father and grandfather knew Mr Mandela, reflected: “You know, it’s not just Madiba’s passing. You heard the other names of those we have lost being read out: Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Joe Slovo……Where are the people of that caliber who have replaced them? We would like to think, of course, we’ll be alright as a country, but there is always this fear in the back of the mind about the future.”

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